An oil company has sued to block San Benito County’s voter-approved fracking ban in a move that could affect the growing trend of California cities and counties’ efforts to stop the controversial oil drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing.

Temperatures across the Bay Area soared to record highs this winter, forecasters said Monday, the same day that a team of Stanford researchers warned that the historic heat is helping drive California’s crippling drought — with little sign of letting up.

A Southern California city has launched eminent domain proceedings to take over the private water agency that has served the community for more than 80 years – an unusual move, even in California, where fights over water are common.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has opened a new 3.5 mile-long tunnel in Sunol Valley, a few miles east of Fremont, that will transport 265 million gallons of water a day, on average, to customers of the Hetch Hetchy water system.

Mr. [Alan] Alda started suggesting to university presidents that they teach scientists how to present their research to the public. … The ability to describe science effectively could prove key to winning research financing in the future.

Few storms have graced California so far this winter, but those that did – in mid-December and early February – will allow the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to increase water deliveries to most customers of the State Water Project (SWP) by an additional 204,000 acre-feet (AF).

Recently it was revealed that oil and gas operators in California have been granted more than 2500 permits to inject oil and gas wastewater and other fluids into federally protected drinking water aquifers. What do we know about the stuff that’s being injected into Californians’ drinking water?

New information from the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) reveals that decades of poor record-keeping, lax oversight, and – in some cases – outright defiance of the law has allowed oil and gas operators to inject potentially toxic oil and gas wastewater into federally protected drinking water aquifers.

In a clear indicator that California is descending into a fourth year of drought, the federal government on Friday announced that the Central Valley Project — California’s largest water delivery system — will provide no water again this year to most Central Valley farmers and only 25 percent of the contracted amount to urban areas such as Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.